"...I'm not sure how much credit to give him for the cough syrup but it looks like it helped." 

"Apparently he didn't steal it, but eating a fairy seems to have made him more lawful."

Marlo nods and keeps petting Sasha's hair.

"...I don't like how vicious I get when I'm around him. I don't think it's just that it's him, yesterday it was aimed at Lilith, but — I still don't like it." 

"Do you think it's a mind magic thing or something else?"

"I don't think it's mind magic but I'm not sure how I would know and whether it's native or not either way I don't like it." 

Leo hugs him.

"...I'm not really a being that can help with that but I can listen?"

He hugs Leo. "I...." and he's choosing his words very carefully, "don't want to be the kind of person who sees someone getting hurt and thinks good.

And I keep thinking about running on four legs — or thinking Sasha looks like a new foal — or thinking about trampling Lilith or goring Asher against a tree like any other predator — and the first two aren't bad in themselves but I don't know if I'm imagining or remembering and I don't like not knowing —" 

"I... think it's probably remembering? You doubt your perceptions a lot even though they're usually accurate, and I think people with amnesia sometimes get flashes of memories?"

"...I don't think I like knowing that I've done that either." 

"You can't know why you did it, or who you were protecting."

"That's true." 

He nuzzles Marlo's shoulder with his nose, which is probably less effective as a comforting action when you aren't a small adorable dog.

....it's still pretty effective. Marlo adjusts the way he's holding Sasha so he has space to hold Leo properly too. 

"I like you, at least."

Whether he's liked isn't really the issue. 

"I'm glad," he says instead of that. "I like you too." 

Leo puts his head on Marlo's shoulder.

Marlo puts a hand on the back of his head and pets his hair and cradles him. 

That night, he can't sleep. 

That's not uncommon; he has a lot of sleepless nights. This time is different — he isn't worrying about school or about Sasha and Leo or even about the curse, even with Sasha too-hot and still-shivering in his arms; he can't think about anything but running. Anything but natural light and still water and — 

He gets out of bed (Sasha curls around Leo; he adjusts the blanket so it covers both of them) and writes a note and goes to the school, partially because that's where all of this started and partially because they have a field there (the streets feel wrong, his feet feel wrong.) 

The grass feels right. It feels more right when he takes his shoes off; he isn't cold, so he takes off his jacket, and then his shirt, and sprawls out on the field and looks up. You can sort of see stars (not really, though, not like in — he doesn't know where it is that he's remembering, he can only call it there —) and it's a crescent moon tonight. He doesn't know what time it is — clocks are such a human thing, that obsessive need to know the difference between 2:33 and 2:34, he thinks, and usually he'd push the thought away but this time he doesn't; he holds the thought and concentrates on it, remembers how he sleeps longer in winter than in summer and how he hasn't needed an alarm clock since third grade. 

The air is cool and — nights are never really quiet in a city but the night is quiet. He's alone here; there's nobody on the bleachers. It's just Marlo and the night and the field and this tangle of memories and if he pulls the threads just right he thinks maybe he can — 

He isn't back in bed by morning. 

Leo noses Sasha awake. "Wasn't Marlo here last night?"

He opens his eyes. 

"Yeah. He was." 

"What if he got kidnapped?"

He reaches out into the space where Marlo was and his hand lands on a piece of paper. 

Went outside, I'm at the school. Love you. -M 

"Doubt it," he says, and shows Leo the note. 

"Okay. I hope he comes back soon."

"Me too," he says, and starts to settle into bed. 

There's a sound from outside Sasha's window.